As a criminal defense attorney, one of the most difficult things you do is to form any sort of relationship with your client in order to adequately prepare a defense. Most criminal defendants are wary of anyone involved in the criminal justice system, even defense counsel, if they have any sort of history of charges and/or jail time.

Imagine trying to do your job as defense counsel when your client is someone at Gitmo.

Access to Guantanamo is severely restricted, with visitors required to arrive either on military planes or government-approved charters that have limited space and schedules.

"A simple one-hour meeting with a client usually requires a four-day round trip by counsel," Fleener wrote in his motion.

Because of the security and travel restrictions, it is "logistically impossible" to provide an adequate defense, said Fleener.

Fleener said other defense lawyers are expected to file similar motions asking that the trials be moved from Guantanamo.

It’s difficult enough to meet with clients who are incarcerated here in the US — security is enormous (for good reason, frankly, having sent some of those folks to the penitentiary myself and knowing what they can be capable of in terms of violence…), and the paperwork and red tape involved in getting a meeting with your client can be a pain in the ass. When you add in the layers through the Pentagon, especially Rummy’s take on the Pentagon, it gets really tough.

Look, I’m probably more of a legal hard ass when it comes to criminal punishment than most folks. I tend to be way more conservative even than Mr. ReddHedd on this sort of thing.

But our laws provide for an adequate defense and a presumption of innocence — and we either stand by that, or we might as well start phoning it in for random incarceration without adequate trial. Good for the military attorney who is pushing this forward. Folks in the JAG corps are often between a rock and a hard place in these cases — where their patriotism is challenged for doing their jobs, but where dedication to the ideals of legal practice have to remain at the top of the list. It’s a very, very tough job, and I salute the ones who are doing it. Well done, indeed.

One has to wonder, though, what is going on at Gitmo now that is requiring this whole new level of media restriction? And how, exactly, would we ever find out what is being done in our name when there is already so little oversight by the Rubber Stamp Republican Congress? I don’t hold the Constitution and our nation’s laws so cheaply that I am willing to sell them out at any price…and it is worth a reminder to our nation’s leadership that there are a whole lot of citizens who feel the same way.

(btw, thanks to "Joe" for the heads up on this article. Much appreciated.)

“The survey by the Pew Research Group also found support for US President George W Bush and his “war on terror” had dropped dramatically worldwide.
Goodwill created by US aid for nations hit by the 2004 tsunami had also faded since last year, the survey found.
The survey questioned 17,000 people in 15 countries, including the US……
According to the survey:
1)Worldwide support for the “war on terror” has remained the same or declined
2)European confidence in Mr Bush has sunk even lower than it was last year
3)A majority of people in most countries feel the US will not achieve its goals in the “war on terror”

At least the blame is rightfully being placed on those in the administration, not the US citizens.

…the Decider wants to close Gitmo… but it’s hard, hard work. As he said yesterday, they’ve been letting a lot of the detainees go home… more than the public knows about. Here’s a little clip from yesterday’s presser — Chimpy on Gitmo:

I’d like to close Guantanamo, but I also recognize that we’re holding some people that are darn dangerous, and that we better have a plan to deal with them in our courts. And the best way to handle — in my judgment, handle these types of people is through our military courts. And that’s why we’re waiting on the Supreme Court to make a decision.

Part of closing Guantanamo is to send some folks back home, like we’ve been doing. And the State Department is in the process of encouraging countries to take the folks back. Of course, sometimes we get criticized for sending some people out of Guantanamo back to their home country because of the nature of the home country. It’s a little bit of a Catch-22. But we’re working through this.

No question, Guantanamo sends a signal to some of our friends — provides an excuse, for example, to say the United States is not upholding the values that they’re trying to encourage other countries to adhere to. And my answer to them is, is that we are a nation of laws and rule of law. These people have been picked up off the battlefield and they’re very dangerous. And so we have that balance between customary justice, the typical system, and one that will be done in the military courts. And that’s what we’re waiting for.

Eventually, these people will have trials, and they will have counsel and they will be represented in a court of law. I say, “these people,” those who are not sent back to their mother countries. You know, we’ve sent a lot of people home already. I don’t think the American people know that, nor do the citizens of some of the countries that are concerned about Guantanamo.

Gitmo and detentions are at least in violation of the spirit of our laws and our traditions if not the actual laws (ie treaties that become the law of the land). I still think the only way you get rid of a president who systematically breaks the law is Impeach him. The Constitution says it is so. So be it. There have to be some consequences for actions.

You know, I try to keep up on the events at Gitmo when and where I can. It’s becoming more and more difficult because of the press restrictions and the legal representation issues. I have little to no sympathy (emphasis pretty much on the no part) for people who employ terrorist tactics against innocents, but what we are doing in Guantanimo is so antithetical to who we are supposed to be as Americans…and it makes me sick to my stomach to even think about this. We are judged by how we act when we think no one is able to watch — and right now, the Bush Administration is failing that test by trying to set up circumstances where no one can watch so they can act however they please. Wrong does not begin to explain how this feels…

This is a message from Ramsey Clark. I think it is very powerful. Sorry block quotes…but I am qoting the email directly. I tried to just link but this is not on the website. Sorry for length but again, I thought this was very powerful.

A message from Ramsey Clark

The case for impeachment is clear beyond question.

The list of Bush’s crimes is long. The “Shock and Awe” invasion was Bush’s war of aggression — a crime identified as the “the Supreme international crime” by the Nuremberg Tribunal. Remember Falluja, the American Guernica, a virtual destruction of a defenseless city by superior military technology (36,000 homes, 8,400 shops destroyed in the final assault alone); Abu Ghraib, the shameful celebration of sick forms of sexual torture; Haifa Street, Baghdad, where a U.S. helicopter gun ship killed 13 unarmed people and injured 50 dancing around a burned out Bradley Armored Vehicle; Abu Shifa, a small village, where U.S. soldiers were accused of rounding up civilians, forcing them into a room, then opening fire, killing 11 people, including a 75 year-old, a 6 month-old baby, and five children under the age five; Haditha, where Marines murdered 15 defenseless civilians, and injured many more, most women and children; and tiny Guantanamo, where the U.S. has compiled human rights violations in four years that have been denounced by the entire world including the United Nations. Yet President Bush arrogantly refuses to close the Guantanamo prison, or return the land and sovereignty to Cuba while U.S. officials fret over three prisoners who committed suicide in one day to “embarrass the U.S.”

The grand total of civilian deaths in Iraq is probably more than 250,000, and rapidly growing. (The Lancet Medical Journal) U.S. military deaths exceed 2500, the seriously injured number more than 15,000 and the number who will suffer mental and physical impairment from the occupation of Iraq is in the unknown tens of thousands.

What respect for human dignity! What reverence for life! What better way to make enemies?

The necessity for citizen action to secure impeachment is also clear beyond question. The Congress will not act unless We, the People demand it and vote those out of office who fail to respond.

Our government is geared for war as directed by transnational corporations, domestic industries, and the corporate media.

Both branches of our One Party system, Democrat and Republican, favor the use of force to have their way. Consider,

Remember that every Congress in the past half century has approved excessive military budgets and the last three have approved increases that have made the U.S. military budget larger than those of all other nations combined.

The U.S. will remain a military threat to the world until it vastly reduces its military expenditures. The single highest priority for peace is cutting the U.S. military budget. The United States government may have been able to outspend the Soviet Union into economic collapse in the Cold War arms race, injuring the entire planet in the process. Now Bush has entered a new arms race and is provoking a Second Cold War with China. Yet what can China do, as the U.S. builds a first-strike oriented missile shield and uses Japan and a huge advanced military base at Pyongtaek on Korea’s west coast, not 500 miles from Beijing?

The U.S. at this time is capable of striking any place on earth with a nuclear armed missile within one hour of the order to fire, launched from a Trident II, or other nuclear weapons system. We are at this time spending billions on a new generation of nuclear weapons that can be used tactically, against four blocks of Falluja, or an alleged Al Queda camp in Pakistan. At the same time, we threaten Iran and others for seeking to develop nuclear energy with the claim that they may build a crude bomb. Yet the only defense a nation today has to U.S. militarism is the threat of nuclear retaliation. The U.S. is seeking total dismantlement and prohibition of all weapons of mass destruction everywhere else, because it possesses the vast majority of all WMD’s and far superior delivery systems.

George Bush loved being a War President while he was winning – winning over the bodies of impoverished and defenseless people, that is. Someone told him only war presidents can be great presidents. He will love war again if his polls go up.

President Bush would rather make enemies by the use of force to have his way, than seek agreement with friends by helping others and recognizing their rights and interests. He prefers to go it alone, and then entice or coerce whatever help he can get from others, whether it is for Iraq, global warming, the prohibition of land mines, or the use of minors in war, addressing hunger, poverty, AIDS, natural disaster relief, or most United Nations activities, and absolutely, the International Criminal Court which might indict him. He is spared defeat at the polls because he cannot seek re-election.

He can be held accountable only by impeachment. The American people must not acquiesce to his crimes.

Consider that all the major candidates, Democrat and Republican — Clinton, Edwards, Kerry, McCain, Frist, — voted for the war and/or favor the Iraq Occupation.

To stop U.S. militarism, the U.S. must vastly reduce its military expenditures, 50% in five years and further down from there on. It must use those savings to combat poverty, hunger, sickness and unemployment at home and abroad.

The U.S. must seek friends by word and deed, rather than make enemies. The harm George Bush has done to the way the rest of the world sees our country will take a generation to overcome, after we change our warlike ways.

But the only way to convince the world that We the People do not approve of the conduct of George W. Bush is to impeach him. Otherwise we can only be seen as approving of his acts, or as powerless to prevent them.

And the only way we can deter the next, and future Presidents, from seeking war rather than peace is to impeach George W. Bush and his key advisors now. Only then will political leadership know the American people will not accept more war.

Last week ImpeachBush.org placed an ad calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush on the second page of the internationally read newspaper, USA Today. The impeachment movement has placed similar ads in the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle. The time to impeach is now. This movement has grown with your continuing support. Please make a donation to the campaign today so that the movement will grow in the coming months. Click here.

Christy, this could be too big a can of worms to open before breakfast, but I’ll ask anyway: Presumably there is a whole country-ful of lawyers (and judges) out there who think as you do – that ours is a nation based on constitutional law and not executive fiat.

And yet month after month, year after year, we learn of new legal (let’s not even talk moral) outrages, and the collective national response is a shrug of the shoulders – “gee, that’s not so good, shouldn’t be like that, but there’s nothing we can do.”

What’s the stumbling block? What’s broken down? Why isn’t the legal profession scaling the walls? Is it SCOTUS? Is it that we’ve become a nation of abused citizens too beaten down to respond? I’m not talking about protest and outrage. Those are important too. I’m talking about what seems to me to be a collapse of the legal system. Laws don’t count anymore, and those inside the legal system whimper or look the other way.

How is it that we’ve outsourced our prisons, our decency, and our observance of the laws and ideals on which our country was founded?

And when you combine *how* a fair number of folks arrived at Gitmo, that feeling in the pit of your stomach just gets worse. GIs in Iraq spreading $$ around for information about al-Qaeda might have been a good idea for gathering information, but the evaluation of it seems to have been spotty at best. How do you sort out the folks turned in as terrorist suspects from the folks who were turned in for a few bucks and a huge dose of revenge (”His family disrepected my family a couple years ago, but now I’ve gotten him back!”)?

percy at 14 — you’re going to have to give me time for another cuppa coffee before I answer that one completely. *g* The legal system operates on a series of precedents…and this is an unprecedent series of actions by the President, let’s just start with that. The ABA looking at the signing statements issue because Congress is not doing so is a very good start. But it’s only a start…

Christy – I agree 100%. It’s the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do attitude of Chimpco. I would imagine that’s why they didn’t put the prison on U.S. soil — so they could somehow pretend that our laws don’t apply.

My bigger fear is those “black sites”. Maybe I’m paranoid but I always feel that what the public knows is just the tip of the iceberg. For every dirty secret we find out about, there are 10 more that stay hidden under the bed.

Considering the numerous illegal actions of BushCo, and considering the Red Cross reported that something like 70% of the inmates at Abu Graib were innocent, we can assume a lot of innocents are being persecuted at Gitmo and other places. I don’t know what advantage the military thinks this gives us in the “war on terror,” but I think it undermines everything they claim they are trying to achieve.

And that,to me at least,is what lies at the heart of everything going wrong in America now.

Used to be that people kinda understood that,you do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do,whether you get a reward out of it or not.

Or,as I told my first husband,”Dude,if you can’t do it in front of me,then there’s a pretty fucking good chance you shouldn’t be doing it at ALL.”Not that he heeded my wisdom,hence the”first husband”title.(my limit,for the record,on marriages is two,I refer to the current Mr AOB as my last husband,lol.If this one happens to not work,I quit the marriage thingy)

The gateway to hell this treatment of prisoners opens is something that will haunt America for a long time.This doesn’t even take into account what will happen to any of our own if they are captured and imprisoned by other countries.It also kind of ends up limiting places in this world any American will be able to visit,for business or for fun,and feel safe.And those are just little side effects compared to the big picture.

On the topic of coffee — I’ve been using a brand called Raven’s Brew; ordering it off the internets. I have to say, it is way better than Starbuck$ and Dunkin Donuts. They make a few different kinds, this is the one I am drinking now… mmmmmmmm…

I went to NPR and listened to the interview on the Diane Rehms show of the attorney for on the the suicide victims from gitmo. Without a whole lot of discussion on the specifics, he questions if these three men actually committed suicide. It was a very interesting interview. Here’s the link in case your interested!

This goes beyond just gitmo, of course. NSA, FISA, Padilla… The law has become little more than GWB saying, “I’m the decider.”

And everyone goes, “Okay.”

We spend years in school being taught how brilliant our system of government is, owing to checks and balances, constitutional protections etc. Then overnight, it seems, without warning, without even true public support and – here’s the part where I’m having trouble – without apparent signficant opposition from the legal profession, the bill of rights becomes a snotrag.

Back on October 28 2005, Fitzgerald’s spokespersn, Randall Samborn stated “the investigation will continue” when asked if Fitz was still looking at other possible indictments besides Libby. Fitz also said the investigation was ongoing in his press conference.

Samborn is notorious for not saying anything but “no comment.” This Ocotber 28 statement by Samborn — “the investigation will continue” — was just about the only time he ever answered a direct question. So it’s very significant Samborn was quoted on June 13, 2006 as having changed the answer to that same question. His Ocotber answer has now been changed from “the invesitgation will continue” to “I’m not commenting on that as well at this time”. This must be important since is signifies a lack of consistency from the usuallly consistent Samborn.
For a detailed analysis of this issue see Citizenspook’s latest, “RANDALL SAMBORN INDICATES FITZGERALD’S PLAME INVESTIGATION MAY HAVE BEEN SHUT DOWN “http://citizenspook.blogspot.com
I know citizenspook can piss people off, but he’s NEVER quoted an anonymous source. He encourages people not to take his word on anything but to use their own bullshit detetector on everyone including him. He was the only blog to provide detailed legalled coverage the Espionage Act while everybody was focussed on the IIPA and his analysis was vindicated by Fitz when Fitz said that statute was in play.
Spook does not believe Joe Wilson is on the up and up, but his critique is far different than those on the right who disparage Wilson and defend the Bush cabal. Citizenspook is a harsh critic of the Bush administration and has repeatedly called them traitors.
Citizenspoook accepts no advertising as well. And his essay about the Grand Jury being a separate Fourth Branch of Government is a must readfor all patriots.

Redd,
“We are judged by how we act when we think no one is able to watch %u2014 and right now, the Bush Administration is failing that test by trying to set up circumstances where no one can watch so they can act however they please. Wrong does not begin to explain how this feels%u2026″

OT: RE: Schumer refusing to rule out supporting Lieberman as an independent.
What’s the legality of the DSCC taking money from people who donated it thinking that it would support Democratic candidates, then turning around and using it to oppose a legally selected Democratic candidate? Schumer is two steps away from saying primaries aren’t binding. I wonder if State attorney general Blumenthal would have something to say about it? The DSCC will probably back down, but maybe pressure should be brought pre-emptively.

All this “due process” and “checks ‘n balances” stuff is SO pre- 9/11 worldview.

Seriously, if we are unable to reclaim the operational mechanics of due process soon, we will have lost the nation bequeathed us by our Founders, and will simply be the new Soviet State. It makes me ill.

With so much going on these days, I confess to not knowing nearly enough about what is going on in Gitmo, but I don’t understand the process – is there one? – that results in detainees being released, if we are not charging or trying them. We just hold them for years, and one day announce, “Get yer shoes on, we’re sending you home?” And those being released cannot say, “Yes, I was at Gitmo, but I was acquitted of all charges,” but instead have this period of detention they will forever have to justify or defend.

I don’t understand why our long-standing system of justice is not good enough to apply to these people. Is it because there is a fear that we can’t even meet the minimum requirements for having detained someone in the first place?

It seems to me that when existing procedures and laws are cast aside and replaced with procedures that can and will shift depending on who is in charge, we are in dangerous territory.

What is to stop someone in power from deciding that Gitmo-style might have wider application? Saying “if you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear” will hold true only as long as those accused of wrongdoing can defend themselves in a timely manner and have recourse against wrongful detention; otherwise, we are all in danger of one day being locked up with no way to get out.

No, I don’t want terrorists running free on the streets, anymore than I want murderers and rapists and sexual predators out there, either. I don’t want them to have more rights than anyone else, but if they don’t have the same rights as everyone else, we are all in danger of facing the subjective assessments and interpretations that take place outside the bounds of law, by people who feel their power is wrongfully constrained by the Constitution.

Did y’all catch (maybe via Glenn) yesterday’s James Norton op-ed in the CSM? Here’s about the middle third of it:

The Founding Fathers didn’t treat prisoners decently solely because they were decent people. Although their writings and ideals reveal a constant and passionate interest in essential human rights, it’s important to remember that they were also pragmatists. They understood that the Revolutionary cause had to take and hold the moral high ground in order to rally popular support and exhaust the British giant. And they knew that their necks were very literally on the line were they to be captured by the British. Mistreatment of British soldiers would come back on their heads a thousandfold.

Times have changed, of course, and now it’s the US that holds the upper hand from a military perspective. There is no longer any fear among US leaders that they personally will suffer the effects of cruel treatment of prisoners, and so they feel far more comfortable ordering the sort of “extraordinary” measures of interrogation and detainment that led to the Gitmo suicides.

What they overlook, of course, is that the moral high ground is still there to be taken – or lost. And as long as “Abu Ghraib” and “Guantánamo Bay” remain in the international lexicon, tyrants around the world can laugh off criticism of their actions coming from American leaders – after all, America understands that desperate times call for inhumane measures, right?

Having seen you and Jane on Cspan at YK I feel I should shave, comb my hair and get out of my pajama’s and into some clean clothes before I post. But, I think it is more about content than form.
There were a series of articles about State Legislatures being able to file articles of impeachment that would force their representatives to bring them to the floor of the House. They went away fast and I didn’t get what was finally decided legally. Do you know?

Percy at 41 — I’ve been thinking about the question, while chasing my daughter around the house, and I keep coming up with the same unsatisfactory answer that I’ve been having for Congress as well: that initial shock after 9/11 really scared the bejeezus out of some people, to the point that the laws went out the window in that desire to protect their families. Some political types saw it as an opportunity (read: Rove and Co.) and have used that fear to their advantage ever since.

But I think those of us who weren’t so willing to throw it all away for a false sense of security were separated for the longest time because we were few and far between. It’s one of the reasons that I started blogging, actually, because it gets lonely being that voice in the community wilderness, and this was an opportunity to have a discussion that didn’t devolve into “You are, too, unpatriotic, you terrorist lover.” (Which, frankly, is so incredibly laughable…)

But I think along with the rest of the country, the legal professionals and the lawmakers are waking up to this at the same time. And those of us who have been trying to push action via outside channels are being contacted by those on the inside as to what can be done. And to that I say, it’s about damn time and what can I do to help.

It’s a tough question to answer, really, because you are talking about human beings just like everyone else in this nation of ours who were undergoing the same feeling of shock. And then bewilderment. And then had that used and manipulated and twisted by this Administration to their own ends. Just now, I’m beginning to get the feeling that people are becoming wise to this — not everyone, but a whole helluva lot more than there used to be. Which can only be a good thing.

But the bottom line is that there really is no good answer on that. Lawyers are no more responsible for the state of the country than any other voting citizen, but they are responsible for their upholding of the constitutional principles about which they were taught. And we need to be much, much more vigilent and vocal about that going forward. That’s the big lesson in all of this for me: if you are not constantly working toward the goals and principles you hold dear, someone else will walk in and set them for you. And you most likely will not enjoy where that takes you.

The ABA’s investigation of signing statements seems to me to be a pr stunt. Some high-powered names are on that panel, but this White House has a history of dismissing anything that comes from something they didn’t set up and can’t control. When the House and Senate Judiciary committees investigate them, then I’ll get interested. When SCOTUS takes up the case, then’t we’ll be getting somewhere.

Someone, somewhere, is really going to make a name for themselves once a flesh-and-blood case gets into the system. Maybe it’s a lawyer in the mold of 1950s Thurgood Marshall. Maybe it’s a judge or justice in the mold of William O Douglas. My fear – deep in my bones fear – is that it will be someone like John Marshall Harlan, most famous for his dissent from Plessy v Ferguson. We don’t need someone to be right in dissent on this.

The Cheney doctrine of government has apparently neutered the legislative branch. Unless and until the dems get (a) a spine and (b) a majority, that’s only going to continue. Cheney & Co. won’t be happy, though, until they’ve overturned Marbury v Madison and neutered the courts as well.

You’ve touched a nerve here Christy, and Mary hasn’t even added her two cents yet (unless she’s come in while I’ve been typing).

Peterr at 49 — Yeah, this has been a raw nerve of mine for quite some time. And I hope that Mary and Otis and Looseheadprop and EPU and all the other legal beagles can chime in on this one, because it’s really, really troubling in terms of long-term implications.

Maybe pr stunt is too harsh. Could it be that this is the kind of “roots action” from the quietly lurking and apparently listening “Friends of Looseheadprop,” who’ve been dropping phrases like “EPU’d” into office conversations?

I can only imagine the frustration in the legal community, especially the judiciary. “Hmmm . . . Padilla’s an enemy combatant, so we’ll put him in a military brig . . . no, wait a minute . . . he’s not that after all . . . “

No, pr stunt is too harsh – but my point, I guess, was to say that the ABA is outside the structures of government that have any direct ability to change things. Their best efforts can only encourage those WITHIN the structures to take action.

Christy – if I go too far, just delete away, but this is one subject that sends me around the bend. Percy is right – it is unbelievable that this has happened and it is more unbelievable that it has been so accepted.

One reason is that the reporting on GITMO STILL has throwaway phrases like this one, in a story yesterday about the decision to return Afghanistan “detainees”.

“The U.S. military opened Guantanamo as a prison camp for suspected Islamic militants in 2002, mostly suspected al Qaeda members captured in Afghanistan”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/200…..fghan_dc_1
Aside and apart from the fact that Afghanistan has said that it thinks over half of the detainees haven’t done anything all that much and they’ll release them immediately — the point is that a very recent Reuters release is still saying that GITMO is “mostly” suspected al-Qaeda member captured in Afghanistan.

Bull. My next post will hit moderation bc it will have several links, but Seton Hall students and others have worked their butts off and fought to get info that shows the military’s own records prove that claim is a lie and it still gets repeated and repeated and repeated.

And our own agencies – the military and the dept of justice are used as enablers, against this country, to discredit it, break its laws, defy its treaties, and drag it into an immoral mess that is the antithesis of the “self evidenct” truths that were the underpinnings of the formation of this country. The press then not only allows, but goes out of its way to incorporated, repeated lies from the adminstraton and military. Over and over. To the point where Federal Judges have to look at DOJ lawyers representing the military in their courts and ask with cynicism, “why should the Court believe you?”

It leaves me, alas, with the continued sinking feeling that the foundations of our country are far weaker than I ever imagined. The good news is that our democracy is slowly swinging back toward normalcy. The bad is that, to mix metaphors, we can come so close to the tipping point.

And OT – but am I the only one who is thinking that now they have identified the “new” al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, al-Masri, that the “state secret” in the el-Masri case is just that someone *@%#&ed up on names?

Just caught part of the Today show news highlights, and they noted that the president of Iran is in Shanghai, looking for support from China and Russia in the standoff over nukes.

The James Norton op-ed that lotus quoted at 43 brings all this together. Gitmo and Abu G have sapped our moral authority abroad, and it’s going to take some big efforts – over many years – to repair that damage (and the damage done in the meantime because we’ve lost that authority).

Our own revolution was fought with one eye on the British and the other on the wider world. Even before the Declaration of Independence spoke about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it talks about “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind” requiring that we tell the world about the abuses we have received at the hands of the British.

If you want to cry this morning, ponder this: someone somewhere is writing that about us.

I think the foundation of our country can withstand many things, but a corrupt government which squanders tomorrow for gains today is like sabotage. And I don’t know how long we can withstand it, or if we’ll know the damage done until it falls.

On lawyers and Gitmo-Part of the problem is simply the lack of lawyers.
NACDL(National Assn. Criminal Defense Lawyers) has been a leader in recruiting pro bono (free)lawyers for Gitmo detainees. Here is a portion of the statement they issued afer the suicides.
(Sorry. Still don’t know block quotes)
_______
“The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) has been actively involved in recruiting pro bono habeas corpus lawyers for the prisoners held at the Guantanamo Naval Base. Several NACDL members have taken on the impossible task of defending people the government has not officially charged. These lawyers represent the prisoners at Guantanamo at their own expense without even travel expenses paid by the government. If the government truly believes that the American justice system is the best in the world, then it must not continue to ignore the responsibilities and rights that system provides. The Military Commissions the government has convened for a few prisoners are not American justice. They are a makeshift, illegal system no American can accept.

To continue to hold over 400 men and boys — some now for over four years — without filing charges makes a mockery of justice. As defense lawyers, we try to give our clients hope, but we cannot even give them a hearing date. For many, hope is running out.

ACDL urges the government to respond to the recent suicides of its prisoners by immediately filing charges if warranted, setting trial dates and providing lawyers, experts and investigators as necessary to assist indigent prisoners to prepare defenses. If the government does not have probable cause to believe these prisoners committed crimes against the United States, it must immediately free them. The world is watching.”

One would think that if the people held in detention centers around the world are guilty, the administration and other governments would hold them up high and prosecute them as an example and as a victory in the endless war on terra. Not nearly as dramatic as framing a cleaned up picture of of the slain Zarqawi, I know! I know that some may have information, but just how long do you have to hold them to beat it out of them??? 5 years?? I believe, deep down in my broken heart, that the vast majority of these souls are most likely innocents, but the administration who will admit no wrong, cannot bring themselves to show this sad fact to the world. I know hunger strikes and suicides are a form of resistance and have been successful and wrought change historically; I also know it is a manifestation of deep despair, hopelessness, forced anonymity and fear. Wilner, Fleener and a host of other attorneys have tried to advocate for their clients and have been thwarted repeatedly. No Geneva Conventions, no due process, no rule of law, not one damn thing we used to stand for.

If some of these people are the worst of the worst, let’s deal with it.

GITMO reports done by Seton Hall et al. Those students and their profs should get huge props.

Mark Denbeaux Professor, Seton Hall University School of Law and Counsel to two Guantanamo detainees
Joshua Denbeaux, Esq.
Denbeaux & Denbeaux
David Gratz, John Gregorek, Matthew Darby, Shana Edwards, Shane Hartman, Daniel Mann and Helen Skinner Students, Seton Hall University School of Law

There is a “Defense Department List” of about 72 groups (it’s not just when “al-Qaeda calls apparently – then there are those PETA and Quaker terrorist groups too.)

Fifty-two of those groups, 72% of the total, are not on either the Patriot Act Terrorist Exclusion List or on two separate State Department Designated and Other Foreign Terrorist Organizations lists (jointly referred to as the State Department Other Lists).

So, people who belong to a group that the Patriot Act and State Dept. would freely allow to come in and out of the country – “association with” that kind of group, by, say, knowing someone who belongs to that kind of group, is grounds for GITMO detention. Unfreakingbelievable.

You also have a National Journal study done by Corine Hegland on the habeas petitions filed (many of those are being filed by lawyers here, pro bono, who have to fight to even get a name for their client). http://nationaljournal.com/abo…..203nj2.htm

Only about 8 of the GITMO detainees have even been accused of having any kinds of relationships to any plans to engage in terrorist activities outside of Afghanistan and of those, well golly – apparently it increases your chances of LEAVING Gitmo if you were planning to blow up things in other countries.

One of the eight, an Australian fundamentalist Muslim, admitted that he trained several of the 9/11 hijackers and intended to hijack a plane himself; another of the eight, a Briton, is said to have targeted 33 Jewish organizations in New York City. Both men were released to their home governments in January 2005. Neither one is facing charges at home.

Looking at the Department of Defense’s own analysis of the detainees, prepared for the “enemy combatant” tribunals, they discovered that “Eight percent are detained because they are deemed ‘fighters for;’ 30 percent considered ‘members of;’ a large majority — 60 percent — are detained merely because they are ‘associated with’ a group or groups the government asserts are terrorist organizations. For 2 percent of the prisoners their nexus to any terrorist group is unidentified.”
. . .
The Seton Hall report discloses that all the evidence the government has used to claim that a detainee is “associated” with terrorism is the following: “Associations with unnamed and unidentified individuals and/or organizations; associations with organizations, the members of which would not be allowed into the United States by the Department of Homeland Security; possession of rifles; use of a guest house; possession of Casio watches; and wearing of olive drab clothing.”
. . .
This seems a much lower bar than we had imagined for getting yourself declared an “enemy combatant.”

One reason we have all of this mess? Hamdi. In particular, Justice O’Connor’s “let’s try to make it better without actually saying anyone did anything wrong” approach in Hamdi (IMO). Tack on a Congress that has such completely inept, easily led by the nose, tools such as Sen Levine (who I think is probably a nice man and no doubt has good points – but WTFFFFFFFF as he THINKING?) who go along with legislating to make the detentions LEGAL and to insulate them from habeas, ALL WITHOUT REQUIRING ADHERENCE TO THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS, UCMJ, etc.

So you have things like Pakistan warlord selling guys in “drab clothing” or who “wear a Casio watch” to soldiers who ship them off to GITMO and Congress hitches its baggy overalls and says: “Uh yep, those them there guys are bad guys”; and the Press, glassy eyed, is EVEN TODAY repeating the “worst of the worst, al-Qaeda captured on the battlefield” mantra like short circuited Stepford wives.

Sorry. Preview function isn’t working for me. Neither are any of my html tags. I tried to link to NACDL statement (which I actually do know how to do) but it won’t let me. Here is the link to the full NACDL statement.

Here’s the deal with Gitmo and lawyers– there is no real legal process there in which lawyers can effect anything for their clients, and because there is no criminal due process, the detainees are not even entitled to be supplied defense lawyers, like they would if they were chrged with crimes (Inded, that is one reason Bu$hCo has resisted the requirements of due process at Gitmo so hard. They’d have to give them all lawyers.)The only ones with active military lawyers are the ones designated ready for their Kafka-esque “tribunal.”

They are in legal limbo. The Center for Constitutional Rights and others have been litigating this for years, but the Supremes haven’t ordered the administration to provide the due process that attends to criminal cases or any real equivalent. So lawyers have no real way to get into the limited process which does exist. Without the protections of the genva convention, and without the constitutional due process of U.S.criminal procedure, I frankly don’t see how it is much different from a concentration camp.

We can’t, simply because, even in the case of truly “guilty” captives (a relatively small percentage of all of those held, by all crediuble accounts), our unlawful treatment of them would render their cases problematic. That’s whay Bush simply wants to Gulag these people. To let ‘em go is an admission that we fucked up (and probably MADE new enemies for the trouble), to bring them to trial risks shining jurisprudential and public light on the abuses we’ve perpetrated in “taking the gloves off.”

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Pentagon confirmed Thursday that 2,500 U.S. troops have died in the Iraq war since it began more than three years ago, marking a grim milestone even as President Bush hopes a recent spate of good news will reverse the war’s widespread unpopularity at home…
____

Were we to still be functioning with Vietnam-era MASH capacity, the death toll would likely be triple the 2,500. And, many of those whose lives we’ve “saved” can look forward to a lifetime of chronic physical and bureaucratic hell. My Dad left a leg behind in Sicily during WWII. The residual after-effects remain with him today, his dementia state notwithstanding.

The US version of the Guantanamo suicides is disgraceful. The cause of death was gross injustice

Zachary Katznelson
Monday June 12, 2006
The Guardian

On Friday night, three prisoners in Guantanamo Bay committed suicide. Two Saudis and one Yemeni hanged themselves. In a desperate attempt at spin, the US claims this was an act of war or a public relations exercise. The truth is quite different. Islam says it goes against God to kill yourself. So what would drive a man to take his own life, despite his religious beliefs? The answer shames the US and its allies, Britain prominently included.

The 460-plus men in Guantanamo Bay have been held for longer than four years. Only 10 have been charged with a crime. Not one has had a trial. The men are not allowed to visit or speak with family or friends. Many have suffered serious abuse. Most are held on the basis of triple and quadruple hearsay, evidence so unreliable that a criminal court would throw it out. Yet the US says it can imprison the men for the rest of their lives. Imagine yourself in this environment, told you will never have the chance to stand up in a court and present your side of the argument. What would you do if no one would listen, if you had been asking for justice for four years and had nothing in return? How hopeless would you become?

Christy 61 – how assinine indeed. It is the whole reason why we need, not for on the ground battles (which should be governed by the Geneva Conventions and handled per POW instructions since we are in other people’s countries, invading those countries, and civilians who take up arms in that scenario are required to be treated as POWs), but for the other aspects of our “war on terror” to be treating the situations as dealing with criminals and taking an approach that involves evidence and due consideration, not a “pack em off to GITMO or rendition or secret detention, torture em a bit, then see what we find out and if we screw up or go to far, just disappear them or what was left of them”

It’s not just immoral it is STUPID. I do disagree about the role lawyers play bc I think that with the kinds of issues the country faces, different groups have more asked of them. In a pandemic, doctors and emergency providers; in a blizzard people with vehicles that can operate effectively; in a flood, people with boats; in a fire, firefighters; with a city in riot, police and national guard, etc.

When the constitution is under outright and direct attack – lawyers absolutely are the front line and we folded. I couldn’t feel worse about how little I have done and couldn’t be more shocked, absolutely one hundred percent shocked, at the arguments that have been made and accepted.

It’s like ER docs in a pandemic saying: “let’s go see who has money and power before we decide who to treat.”

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that police can use evidence collected with a warrant even if officers fail to knock before rushing into a home.

Justice Samuel Alito broke a 4-4 tie in siding with Detroit police, who called out their presence at a man’s door then went inside three seconds to five seconds later.

The case had tested previous court rulings that police armed with warrants generally must knock and announce themselves or they run afoul of the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said “whether that preliminary misstep had occurred or not, the police would have executed the warrant they had obtained, and would have discovered the gun and drugs inside the house.”

The court did not say how long police officers must wait after knocking before they enter a home to execute a search warrant.

But suppressing evidence is too high of a penalty, Scalia said, for errors in police searches.

The outcome might have been different if Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was still on the bench. She seemed ready, when the case was first argued in January, to rule in favor Booker Hudson, whose house was searched in 1998.

She retired before the case was decided, and a new argument was held so Alito could participate in deliberations.

Hudson’s lawyers argued that evidence against him was connected to the improper search and could not be used against him.

Scalia said that a victory for Hudson would have given “a get-out-of-jail-free card” to him and others.

IMO, you have a cabal who intimately knows the system, its blind spots, and how to game it overall. Additionally, they have the will to expand their activities ahead of the anticipated response curve, and the amorality necessary to lie repeatedly when it suits their purposes.

It would be convenient to dismiss this as an example of short-sighted corporate privateer thinking writ large, with all of the weaknesses inherent to such plans, but the tenure of some of these individuals proximity to power and their stubborn adherence to such principles and objectives as they proffer suggests otherwise.
However, there is evidence to portend that these people are in reality their own nemesis and that what they are authoring, far from securing unlimited unitary omnipotence, will instead lead to a structural implosion that will destabilize their power base and create a vacuum which will require prudent filling.

Thus, I would suggest that one’s own personal ideals, and the ideals that the nation was founded upon be kept at the highest level of objective awareness for when the time comes to renew America, and that reaching out to the rest of the world with a heartfelt mea culpa and a resolute will to prosecute any and all wrongful conduct on a global stage (irrespective of whatever pardons or trickery occur within the compromised interior structure) be considered.

When the constitution is under outright and direct attack – lawyers absolutely are the front line and we folded. I couldn’t feel worse about how little I have done and couldn’t be more shocked, absolutely one hundred percent shocked, at the arguments that have been made and accepted.

Well, I disagree. I’m a lawyer who has not folded and neither are you. You’re here, aren’t you? I may not have spent my own money to go to Gitmo to do nothing effective as a lawyer, but I still do a lot. I do politics at every level. I do public education projects like staging speeches by David Cole and the lawyers from CCR for my community and local lawyers, I stage debates on the Patriot Act and make the U.S. Attorney and the SAC FBI show up and debate it with legal experts, and I do lots of media. Everywhere I go and everyone I talk to hears from me (and you too, I’m sure) that Bu$shCo has stolen democracy, kidnapped the rule of law and hijacked the principles on which this country was founded, and we are fed up and coming to get it all back!

You mention that the unconscionable [my word] detention without trial of hundreds of people taken from the vacinity of the battleground in Afghanistan and Pakistan is accepted by the public with a shrug. You are so right. It is because the general public has lost the ability to intelligently question whatever it hears on TV. We now have three generations of people who have been sold everything from soap to politics on TV, and the result is “brainwashing.”

The other peoblem, which I keep drumming on is the lack of education in the past 40 years, about what it means to be a citizen: the responsibility to question elected officials about their policies and their actions, as well as the lack of a deep understanding of what the Constitution says about law and our rights under the law. The generation which understood these things best is old and not long for this world.

We have, as a nation, become too comfortable in our economic wealth, too enamored of “safety” to rock our little boats with other people’s problems, especially if those people happen to be connected to our “enemies” through race, religion, or geographical proximity. In short, we are the victims of a conditioning that stems from stereotyping and hidden bigotry, magnified through publicity campaigns from the government.

The mea halfa culpa cited by T at 86 concludes with “Expect a more comprehensive accounting of this matter on Monday, June 19.” I’m interested in this whole saga not so much because of the possibility of new credible information, but because it is a test of our ability to survive and learn from poor reporting or deliberate attempts to mislead, and then use our resources to evaluate the sourcing and reliability of different sites.

Folks, every so often, hit “reload” instead of refresh comments, so that you pick up the moderated comments. (Don’t know if this is an FDL thing or a browser thing . . . I’m using Firefox on Windows XP)

This is what Leopold said on the radio w/ Ian Masters, “I will reitereate: these sources that I have had on this story know full well that leading me astray… I would no longer be obliged to keep their identities secret.”

It seems that there are very few scenarios that allow him to keep his word.
Any Plameologists can feel free to list (or link to) those so folks like me will know what they are. Please?

“A federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that the government has wide latitude under immigration law to detain noncitizens on the basis of religion, race or national origin, and to hold them indefinitely without explanation”.

The judge (Gleeson) did allow the class action to continue on claims the conditions
of confinement were abusive and unconstitutional . . . opening the door for testimony under oath of Ashcroft and Mueller

The gitmo thing was all hard wired at the time of the First Clusterfuck invasion. Obviously it was well thought out in an extraordinary display of wingnuttery.

What is becoming clear is that Clusterfuck came into office with a whole gaggle of rabid nutters who planned all sorts of extra-constitutional bullshit- cause it was so exciting.

The story about “Iraq reconstruction” from Harpers gives a small picture of the insanity that lies at the core of this administration. They sent young rabid goopers to Iraq who had never done anything more important than drive an ice cream truck and put them in charge of selling off Iraq’s assets in a public auction. How much thought and critical thinking went into any of it? NONE- That’s how much!

Gitmo was a wet dream too. “LOOK- we’ll build us a place where we can take anyone we want and interrogate the hell out of em- keep em as long as we want- and the fuckin courts won’t be able to stop us- cause we’ll call everyone enemy combatants- and we’ll put the place off of US Soil.- IT’ll be SO COOL!”

Now we’re stuck. If Clusterfuck lets these guys lose, they’ll run to the press and unleash a firestorm. Another half baked idea bites the dust. And how much valuable intelligence did Clusterfuck get from his experiment in extra constitutional fascism? Nothin that they want to brag about.

These guys are like high school students who get to be mayor for a day. No- they’re MUCH worse than that.

Only about 8 of the GITMO detainees have even been accused of having any kinds of relationships to any plans to engage in terrorist activities outside of Afghanistan and of those, well golly – apparently it increases your chances of LEAVING Gitmo if you were planning to blow up things in other countries.

One of the eight, an Australian fundamentalist Muslim, admitted that he trained several of the 9/11 hijackers and intended to hijack a plane himself; another of the eight, a Briton, is said to have targeted 33 Jewish organizations in New York City. Both men were released to their home governments in January 2005. Neither one is facing charges at home.

(As the Masters’ announcer said), “In your LIFE, have you seen anything like that?!”

At its root, the very idea of Guantnamo Bay runs headfirst into what it means to be an American.

The US has (or had) a worldwide reputation for promoting human rights. That reputation was earned by its struggle – often against itself, as was the case during the fight against slavery, and the civil rights movement – to protect individuals against systems that would otherwise mistreat them.

The roots of that reputation run deep, reaching back to the Enlightenment ideals that gave birth to the essential protections of the Constitution. But a lot of countries merely talked the talk at the time of their birth – there’s a mile-wide gap between the high-flying rhetoric of the French Revolution and the blood bath that followed.

But George Washington and his compatriots took their founding principles quite seriously. On Aug. 11, 1775, Washington sent a blistering letter to a British counterpart, Thomas Gage. He complained about gravely wounded and untreated American soldiers being thrown into a jail with common criminals.

Eight days later, despite threatening to treat British soldiers with equal cruelty, Washington admitted that he could not and would not retaliate in kind, writing: “Not only your Officers, and Soldiers have been treated with a Tenderness due to Fellow Citizens, & Brethren; but even those execrable Parricides [traitors] whose Counsels & Aid have deluged their Country with Blood, have been protected from the Fury of a justly enraged People.”

Imagine that; a government on the run fighting a desperate war against a hated enemy and treating captured prisoners with compassion and decency. No doubt many of the captured British troops had intelligence that might have been useful to the Revolutionary cause – still, decent treatment was the norm. In the current war on terror, that would be described as being “soft.”

Otis – that was my feeling too. That was a kick in the teeth loss. And Hamdi was not a triumph, it was a disaster of equivocation. *s*

Some links to earlier articles on what the few JAG lawyers who are being appointed to the few “cases” actually proceeding are having to address. In addition, of course, to the fact that they have clients being charged with “secret evidence” that cannot be discussed with their clients — even “secret charges” that can’t be discussed with those charged. This country has become a Twilight Zone episode; a country run by a maniac Kitty Carlyle (sp).

U.S. NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — Whether the soft-spoken man with an easy smile and a posture of compliance is an Al Qaeda bagman or a hapless hotel worker wrongly ensnared in the post-Sept. 11 panic was no clearer after his Tuesday tribunal appearance than when he was arrested four years ago.

The case against Abdul Zahir, who never traveled outside his native Afghanistan before being flown to the U.S. detention site for terrorism suspects here, was suspended until July to give his Army defense lawyer time to travel to the scene of the crimes with which Zahir is charged.

In proceedings that lasted less than two hours, Zahir agreed to go on even without a court translator or a copy of the charges against him in his native Persian.He also said he was satisfied for now with “Colonel Tom,” Army reservist Lt. Col. Thomas Bogar, who is assigned to defend him.

But Chester postponed further proceedings until Bogar, a Philadelphia tax lawyer in civilian life, could travel to the southern Afghanistan region where Zahir is from

Chester noted with mild reprimand the prosecution’s failure to provide Zahir with a Persian translation of the charges against him, filed nearly two months ago and based on events in early 2002.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his appointees set rules that violate President Bush’s order to hold fair trials for prisoners charged with terrorism in the Guantanamo tribunals, a military defense lawyer said yesterday

”If the rules don’t provide for a full and fair trial, they violate the president’s order,” Fleener said.

Tribunal rules set by the Pentagon require the defendants to have US military lawyers who are authorized to see secret evidence that the accused may not be allowed to view.

“We can’t help it that the secretary of Defense and his delegees have messed this thing up, but they have,” Fleener told Brownback.

. . .
In the case of Binyam Ahmed Muhammad, an Ethiopian seeking to represent himself, his Air Force reservist lawyer said she was being forced to choose between disobeying a tribunal order or possibly being disbarred for participating in a case in which attorney-client privilege and other rights had been violated.

In the case of Canadian Omar Khadr, 19, who is accused of fighting U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, lead defense counsel Marine Lt. Col. Colby Vokey complained about the logistics of traveling to Guantanamo and about a lack of procedural clarity.

Vokey said he had no confidence that the obstacles preventing a fair trial were correctable. “What I desperately want to know here is: What are the rules?” he said.

Vokey cited the difficulty in trying to find out why Khadr had been moved from the area for the most cooperative detainees to the maximum-security cellblock. Only under threat of being called to testify did prison officials explain the rationale for moving prisoners in advance of legal proceedings.

WASHINGTON, April 8 (UPI) — An attorney for a Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainee said he’s heard rumors his client tried suicide but the government won’t release any information.
. . .
“I’d like to know if he’s alive,” said Colangelo-Bryan, referring to U.S. government silence on whether Dossari slit his own throat and almost died.

Jumah al-Dossari, a Bahraini national captured in 2001, has tried to take his own life at least 10 times in his four years at the U.S. detention facility, according to military officials. One of the attempts came during a visit by an attorney, who found him hanging from a noose in a bathroom with a deep gash in his arm.

Apparently referring to Dossari, Durand noted that a single detainee accounts for 12 of the 39 suicide attempts at Guantanamo Bay since it opened in 2002. No detainee has died in custody there.
Lawyers blame the Detainee Treatment Act, enacted a few months ago, for their lack of information about clients.
. . .
According to recently released documents from Guantanamo Bay, government officials believe he was helping al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001, shortly before he was arrested at the Pakistani border.
Before his trip to Afghanistan, Dossari lived in the United States on a visa and was an imam at a mosque in Bloomington, Ind., according to military records. Federal agents allege that Dossari was recruiting for al-Qaeda and left shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The only charges levied by the military relate to his allegedly being a cook for enemy forces at Tora Bora in Afghanistan, where U.S. troops fought a fierce battle with al-Qaeda and the Taliban in 2001. Dossari denies being there or being an al-Qaeda member.

An Ethiopian terrorism suspect who claims the United States outsourced his interrogation to torture in Morocco made a dramatic debut Thursday at his war-crimes trial, . . . Within hours, the U.S. Air Force officer assigned to defend him invoked her Fifth Amendment rights — three times — after declaring the Pentagon had created for her an ethical dilemma.
Air Force Maj. Yvonne Bradley became the first person to plead the Fifth in the short history of President Bush’s disputed military commissions, now under review at the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a grisly Supreme Court brief, his civilian defense attorney, Clive Stafford Smith, said that Muhammad confessed to anything he thought his captors wanted to hear — after the United States sent him to Morocco, where he asserted interrogators sliced his genitals with a scalpel.
Muhammad, who lived in London for seven years after fleeing his country, says he never joined al-Qaida and was in Pakistan on a religious journey to shake a drug habit before he was outsourced for interrogation under a CIA policy called “rendition.”

Kohlmann tried to press Bradley and Stafford Smith to take the defense lead.
But Bradley, 43, who was mobilized from private practice in Philadelphia, said she could not go forward because of a Pennsylvania Bar opinion. The opinion found that, by having a Pentagon defense team work in the same office, U.S. military attorneys had overlapping responsibilities toward captives who had allegedly implicated each other.

BTW – I think that, unless there are multiple genital mutilation with razor cases (and I can’t even believe I have to wonder about that) that guy is one of the two sources of “testimony” in the Padilla case.

The presiding officer rejected the appeal by Bradley and Stafford Smith that he conduct a hearing on the conflict-of-interest claim made by Bradley. Kohlmann also refused to allow Bradley to seek the advice of a private lawyer when it became clear she was courting a contempt citation and an indefinite term in the Navy base brig.

Not as if there is any pressure on the JAG lawyers to just shut up and go along, huh.

Kohlmann called a recess and later returned with requests for Bradley, Stafford Smith and University of Chicago law professor Joseph Margulies to submit briefs outlining their numerous concerns about what they see as fundamental flaws in the proceedings

So, what might have happened with no press coverage? I’d say a lawyer would be in the brig for following her State bars ethics opinion.

Pentagon rules so far prohibit self-representation, but Bahlul’s presiding officer, Army Col. Peter Brownback, agreed to consider a plea on behalf of the man who has already admitted that he is a member of al-Qaida.
In a new twist at the evolving war-crimes court, some private attorneys in Wyoming and a civilian group called the National Institute of Military Justice filed briefs in Bahlul’s behalf, arguing that so-called prose representation is a bedrock U.S. constitutional right and also fundamental to international law.
It was the first filing of so-called amicus briefs at the war court President Bush ordered created in late 2002.
“Don’t let this place become Star Chamber-esque,” said Fleener, who was mobilized from a federal public defender’s office in Wyoming.

At issue is whether and how the Pentagon can compel a captive at Guantanamo to accept a U.S. military defense lawyer, whose role will be required as the government is shielding some evidence from the accused.
Fleener said at his hearing Thursday morning that another captive – Saudi Ghassan al-Sharbi, in his 20s – is also refusing the services of his defense counsel. Sharbi, a 2000 graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, makes his war-court debut later this month.

So, no rules, professional ethics opinions that prevent lawyes from doing what the military is requiring, secret evidence, secret charges, threats to throw lawyers in the brig and not allow THEM any legal representation, torture and rendition backgrounds, etc. and that is what is going on in the “open” hearings WITH press.

Now the press has been kicked out.

GITMO command has admitted that some of the detainees have not even been questioned for over a year. And that translation thing – that is oneof the few things that was reported on in the Sibel Edmonds brouhaha. Seems that she complained bc as the interrogator for those “worst of the worst” who were involved in such highly sensitive matters even the charges are secret —— FBI sent a translator who flunked proficiency in English AND the language he was translating from.

That, too, will be the way lawyers will be able to communicate with their clients.

ANd for anyone not paying attention – places like Afghanistan that are taking these guys back are all planning on . . .

T*R*I*A*L*S

Not secret tribunals – trials. Wow. Maybe if the opium crop dries up they can start a cottage industry exporting concepts like that to the United States.

New documents obtained by a conservative watchdog group suggest that the United States Army Corp of Engineers may have publicly lied regarding the involvement of the Vice President’s office in awarding a 2003 multi-billion dollar, no-bid contract to Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton, RAW STORY has learned. …

I would only add that we as a nation will be looking over our shoulders for a long, long time to come.

I am not saying Arabs or Muslims are naturally bloodthirsty – but they have had centuries and in some cases millenia wherein a strong sense of honor/revenge are encoded in to tribal ethos and those not predisposed to violence WILL be motivated to come after us, our children, and grandchildren -

The Bushies will likely neuter ANY case against them using the all-purpose “National Security” canard.
———————————————————-
I don’t see how that would work. We already know they’re there. How could any sort of action jeopardize national security?

rwcole 101(?)re: hardwired from the start. Absolutely. There was a very early Exec Order that said — hey, guess what, its a whole new world out there and the DOD doesn’t have to worry about the UCMJ anymore – just follow whatever rules the Sec of Def or I cook up and we’ll call them hearings. That’s a paraphrase.

The only way to win this war is at the polls. GW Clusterfuck has disengaged all of the normal govt. oversight that we would expect to protect us from brainless monsters.

Remember the american political axiom:

“When an american politician goes to the polls, he/she has 40% of the voters who will vote for him/her no matter what- and 40% who will vote against no matter what. Politics is the art of wooing the other 20%.”

I’m going to squeeze in one more multi-link, that has some stories that have been out there about who “some” of the detainees are (and sure, I do believe some were the ‘worst of the worst’ and I do believe in very strong reactions and response to those who are PROVEN to engage in violent crimes or planning of violent crimes) and why the Press should get application of Yoo’s theories everytime it parrots out that they are all just the “worst of the worst.”

I brought flowers to the isolation cell when I visited Saddiq this month. He likes to draw roses and often asks for gardening magazines.
Saddiq is one of the many mistakes at Guantanamo Bay. In 2005 our military admitted that he was not an enemy combatant, but the government hasn’t been able to repatriate him. (By a curious irony, Saddiq’s opposition to Osama bin Laden makes him too hot to handle in his native Saudi Arabia.) So he lives behind razor wire in Camp Iguana, with eight other men whom the military cleared long ago but who are nevertheless forbidden newspapers, visits from loved ones, English-language dictionaries — and flowers.

So we have someone (apparently 8 or so) that we have determined are not enemy combatants after all – this guy being one who was jailed by the Taliban for being anti-binLaden and then taken to GITMO by Americans. Held for years, finally the ooops factor, but now still held, bc his opposition to bin Laden will put him at risk in his home country (Saudi Arabia btw – but we didn’t invade them, did we?). And “how held”? No contact with his family — even now that he is “cleared.” No books, no wilted flowers.

Then there’s these guys – causing a stir in England. Which is actually having a parlimentary investigation.

They had some passing contact with an imman who is on the terrorist list. The Brits came to them in England to try to convince them to go undercover and collect intel. One did a little, then quit, the others didn’t want to get inovled. A brother of one of them starts a business in Africa, the three go there (and even though NO ONE raises it, I’m even going to go with maybe there were thoughts and concerns about the African nexus). When they arrive, they are kidnapped and taken to GITMO. Where they have been held. For a long long time. No charges.

Courted as spies, held as combatants.
. . .
A review of hundreds of pages of documents recently released by the U.S. Department of Defense, a British court and the men’s attorneys illustrates how the U.S., British and Gambian governments worked together in an operation that circumvented their judicial systems and, through a process known as extraordinary rendition, had two men incarcerated who had not been charged with breaking any law.
. . .
The case has caused a political uproar in Britain. Critics say the documents show the British government has helped place people in Guantanamo, despite its claims that the prison is strictly a U.S. operation.
. . .
A parliamentary committee is investigating. “The key issue that certainly concerns me is whether our government, the British government, was involved in something that I would consider to be unlawful,” said Andrew Tyrie, the committee chairman. “I don’t want to live in a country that could be complicit in such abuses.”

Guantanamo represents a spectacular failure of every branch of government. Congress is willing to pass a bill stripping courts of habeas-corpus jurisdiction for detainees but unwilling to probe what happens to them.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Rasul v. Bush conferred seemingly theoretical rights enforceable in theoretical courtrooms. The right to challenge a government detention is older than this country and yet Guantanamo grinds on.

It grinds on because the Bush administration gets exactly what it pays for in that lease: Guantanamo is a not-place. It’s neither America nor Cuba. It is peopled by people without names who face no charges. ,b>Non-people facing non-trials to defend non-charges are not a story.

You have to read the whole interview – I can’t really excerpt. But the backstory is that everyone knew right away they were an oops. But bc no one knew what to do with them, they kept them. Under the Guantanamo conditions and with no word or notice to their families.

Their case, after lawyers BATTLED to be able to represent them, ended up before the same judge who resigned from the FISA court in protest over the NSA taps program. Gosh, that DC Circuit court position COULD have gone to someone like this. *s* Anyway – the Judge was left with no legal recourse other than to tell the Govt that their detention was illegal (in some places I believe that is called a war crime). But they couldn’t be ordered returned to their home country, bc the reason they were in Afghanistan is that they were escaping abuse in their home country, China, and had been hoping to get to Turkey.

And despite its ooops factor, the US wouldn’t take them into the US and since immigration etc. is an Exec branch or Congressional matter, court could do nothing. Did any members of congress come forward to sponsor them? Nope. So they languished until — uh, their case on appeal was just about to be listed for the S. Ct. docket.

Cowabanga and Shazaaaam. We found someplace to take them after all.

I have to go do other stuff, but this whole situation makes me crazy and ashamed.

I was going to comment on the Alito vote – time to send “thanks a lot” messages to those who voted for cloture? Maybe if we deluge them every time something like this comes down they might get the idea the country cares, and grow some spine the next time?
Then I read Mary’s post on the Catch-22/Twilight Zone world the appointed counsel are caught in on the Guantanamo cases. Sigh. Sigh. I’m speechless, nearly.
Got a million things to do today, was telling myself “no FDL, no FDL, you don’t have time,” but couldn’t help myself. Gotta have my visit to the reality-based community.

Sorry to be so disorganized and “dump” with the info, but it is frustrating that info is available, but just flat ignored.

Did anyone ask the President just how dangerous the Uighurs had been when he talked about all the dangerous folks there – - has ANYONE EVER drilled him on them? Or asked him specifics on any of these other cases when he makes his “we got us dangerous folks there” statements?

If so, I haven’t seen it (but I confess I find it so painful or infuriating to watch that I don’t much).

Please read this article, The Evil of Banality, which I found to be one of the best, most powerful understandings of the Guantanamo atrocity I’ve seen to date. You can find it at The Dissident Voice:http://www.dissidentvoice.org/…..rini14.htm

The problem with Gitmo is that ordinary citizens like me have long thought that ChimpCo has zero competence and zero credibility. With zero oversight there is no telling what incompetence and other horrors–like detaining and torturing innocents, mistaken identities, etc.– that they could get away with. And what’s worse, they make us all look complicit.